A one-off special celebrating four decades of ITV broadcasting in the south of England, hosted from a heritage railway.
Presenter Fred Dinenage hosts this programme marking the 40th anniversary of the ITV service in the south and south-east of England. The celebration is staged on the historic Bluebell Line steam railway in East Sussex, where Dinenage meets a number of personalities associated with the region’s television history. Guests joining him for the journey include singer Cleo Laine, disc jockey Tony Blackburn, comedian Bobby Davro, and former presenter Shaw Taylor.
This special was produced by Meridian Broadcasting to commemorate forty years of independent television in its franchise area, a history that began with Southern Television in 1958. The programme’s construction is deliberately informal, using a journey on a heritage railway as a framing device for a series of conversations with regional personalities. The choice of Fred Dinenage as host was key; his long career with Southern, TVS, and Meridian gave the programme an anchor of genuine continuity. The result is a gentle piece of television archaeology, more a nostalgic celebration than a critical documentary, reflecting on the shared cultural memory of a specific ITV region.
Broadcast: ITV – Meridian, 1 Episode, 30 August 1998
Director: Nick Knowles
Producer: James Montgomery
Executive Producer: Claire Lewis
Main Cast: Fred Dinenage (Presenter), Cleo Laine, Tony Blackburn, Bobby Davro, Shaw Taylor
